That’s a Buddhist contemplation, that I have, several times in my life, explored to the depths my being was able. I’ve had several periods throughout my life of weeks and months being deeply altered by the contemplation of the nature of mind as love.
It’s an amazing drug that you could call Enlightenment to realize that every motion of your mind is by it’s essence kind. “All the sentient beings wants to be happy”.
You could also say that everything is evolution and self perpetuating power structures, however that misses the subjectivity of it.
I have to back up even farther and get more meta, unfortunately. I’ve had to see, many times, that many people are not able to cognize the “hard problem” of the mind/body duality. Most people can’t hold in their mind that subjective experience is different, in nature and category, than objective stuff. People think they can upload their minds into a computer, and as long as a behaviorist could not distinguish big differences between inputs and outputs to the body-self and the computer-self, that therefore there are no meaningful differences.
We can’t ever prove subjectivity in anyone other than ourselves. There is no way to do it. The turing test does not prove subjectivity. We infer that other meat-people like us have subjectivity, and it’s a sound inference. An inference that can not be proven. But we have no call to infer that information is equal to subjectivity. In the distant future when humans have built a globe the size of the galaxy, they could co-ordinate one day to perform a play. Each would hold a giant lego block, representing electrons and chemical messages that pulse within and between neurons in a human brain. They would pass along all these giant blocks to each other, perfectly representing and capturing every conceivable bit of information that is passed on in a brain.
Does that dance have subjectivity of the information that was processed?
No. We can’t infer that it does, and would not infer that. It’s too different from our system that we know causes subjectivity.
Ok, so that’s the hard problem. We really have no idea where subjectivity comes from. I know most readers won’t be able to believe me, and will think that I don’t have the authority to make such a statement. But I do, and we don’t, and nobody does. The closest theory we have that aims to be explanatory is that subjectivity must somehow be a nature of reality in the same way that gravity is. That theory is championed by some physicists, perhaps as they are accustomed to thinking in terms of physics. But that theory doesn’t really work that well, because it can’t account for why subjectivity is only emergent. And people have reported subjectivity when various parts of the brain deemed essential were not active, so we really still don’t have any clue where to point a finger. A brain is needed, but the information itself doesn’t cause it.
But I know that many readers won’t be able to cognize what subjectivity is, and will brush the concept aside as meaningless, and mistake any blow up doll that gives good head with another being who also wants to be happy.
Ok.
So we aren’t just self perpetuating power structures – evolution isn’t everything. We are beings. We have subjectivity. All the sentient beings want to be happy.
We do war, but it’s because we want to be happier.
So every movement of your mind is searching out more happiness. Brains get confused and warped and twisted, and don’t always take the direct approach, but the orienting principle is guided by happiness – it’s evolved that way – of course.
Some drugs and experiences get us to a really existential place. We see things through such fresh eyes, we are amazed all over again that anything at all is here. That we are here. That other people are here. We might fear for how to continue being. We might wonder what it means that piano notes can sound wrong, or give moods. We might consider our place among others – will others care for us if we need help? Are we hurting others?
Looking at the world from the subject – as one existing being among others – then we see plain as day that we are love. We only want other people to be happy. We only want ourselves to be happy.
I’ve been doing ketamine (for legitimate health reasons, and also as an exploration into what it means to be alive) and it always seems to come back to this.
I made up a fun song on the piano yesterday. The title and only verse was “It’s good to be confused because…”
It took until the end of the ketamine trip to find words for after the because. And now I forget what they were – hehe. But there is a reason – it wasn’t one of those false meaningful meanings. It’s good to be confused, because…
Because it gets you existential. It makes you take a fresh look. You have to stand back.
Not knowing is an invaluable place to be. Why do these piano notes do that?!! I have no idea! It’s good to be confused!
Why is anything at all here? I have no idea! It’s good to be confused!
But I know one thing.
All the sentient beings want to be happy.
Evolution couldn’t figure out any other way to do it.
To survive we need rewards and pains, and our biggest rewards come from when we are working towards successful procreation and maintenance of our kin. Sex and being nice to each other. Taking care of our children, receiving care from our parents, getting the huge rewards from coupling in co-operation to make babies, fostering our society, keeping each others spirits up. Love.
Our soul is love.
…
Sadism still exists though.
But sharing love freely is not sadism. Being insecure and jealous may actually be more cruel than sharing love outside of a monogamous bond, if you think about it. If everyone is nothing but kind to each other, always, what right does anyone have to label another as cruel for being kind to someone else, behind her back? And to seek revenge for her own pain – the pain of the other person being kind to someone else!
…
The Tibetan head abbot was visiting our monastery, and during question period replied that it was ok to cheat on taxes, because no one is born into tax slavery and taxation is not a right that any entity has over a person. His opinion was that it was ok to lie, even as a monk having taken vows not to lie, if one is being persecuted wrongfully. Is it therefore also ok to lie about infidelity? If infidelity is in no way wrong, and truth would only lead to being persecuted and have revenge brought upon onseself, and to losing his love, should a man not lie about infidelity? Would that not be the most moral thing to do? For self protection, and so that the goodness of the relationship can be maximized?
Our primitive instincts to feel jealousy do not trump our other primitive instincts to mate non-monogamously, in the realms of morals and ethics. Both are nothing but base instincts – however one of them causes pleasure, the other denies it. Causing pleasure is moral and ethical. Denying it is not. Causing pain is immoral and unethical, however causing the pain of jealousy can be done in two ways:
1) the person is indiscreet in his affairs
2) the person is being spied on or is being overly scrutinized.
If it’s the 2nd then the person causing the harm is the person who is feeling the jealousy.
***
FOG is the acronym of Fear, Obligation, Guilt. The acronym is given as a thinking aid, and is called a red flag.
Hatred is also a red flag.
Our soul is love, but this is a confusing place, with confusing boundaries. The FOG acronym was created to help the community of people who deal with people with Borderline Personality Disorder traits, because FOG is used as a manipulation tool.
We can develop and feel a sweet playful nurturing vibe that has a real presence, and can be a real center. We feel and perform best when it feels as if this center is the actor. When we act out of fear, we are not acting from that center. Obligation by definition is an imposition and expectation that can’t be questioned. Our center acts on it’s own, AFTER questioning, because it WANTS to. Guilt trips can be laid on others to control them, but what happens to the center then? The guilt tripper lays it on like this: “Bad center! You don’t even exist! You are not nurturing or playful unless you obey my rules, so ignore your center and feel shame until you learn to behave, then maybe I’ll be nice to you and also suggest to the group to believe that you have a center of sweet playful nurturing.”
Red flags are signs in the road saying “get off of the road for a moment”. Take a step back, and another.
Of course we all can be unkind or thoughtless, so red flags don’t only mean that others are demonizing us as a manipulation tactic.
The road is our social programming, and it’s not easy to get off that road. But luckily there are some basic common sense guidelines. Such as everyone wants to avoid suffering, and everyone wants to feel good. The tricky navigation comes with the boundaries of FOG. Just because someone else is feeling bad, doesn’t mean you did something wrong, and just because you feel bad, doesn’t mean someone else did something wrong.
People say trust your gut feelings, but that’s terrible advice. Our emotions can be completely out of line with objective reality and the agendas of other people. And our emotions are hugely influenced by our upbringing – our social programming. All social programming has assumptions in it. Assumptions. Things we are told can’t be questioned. You can’t step off the road if you don’t also step off your gut feelings.
We have to use our mind and heart at the same time, because either one alone can fuck up big time. Jealousy, for instance, can be the go to gut/heart feeling, but can lead to dehumanizing someone who loves you. And without heart we can calculate which humans deserve to live and act on that. We are all philosophers choicelessly. Our only option is how good at philosophy we care to be. To step back when seeing a red flag requires stepping waaayyy back – outside of everything.
***
I’m aware that a big chunk of humanity thinks that morals are god given, and mere humans are not in any position to question them. Monogamy, to many, is right and non monogamy when in mutual love can only be performed by people who are wrong to their core.
I realize that no words or argument will change such emotional realities for some people.
But the world is not an emotional reality.
***
I realize that a popular jargon word in what has grown out of the sphere is the term “cucks”, from the root cuckold. I find that a fear and loathing based word. Not a word that comes from a playful place of respecting and nurturing oneself or others. It’s the word of a guy who fears his girl will run off with a more handsome and charming man unless he can convince the entire tribe to enforce some monogamy rules.
That is an evolved strategy, built right into the instincts of many people, and it is also cultural memes. However that strategy is largely ineffective in this changing modern world, and coincidentally is also spiritually bankrupt.
Your woman needs to want to be with you.
If you are going to FOG her, best not to do it rightously. Some women do want to be mate guarded, but it’s a mutual dance – you still need her permission to guard – no one has the right to.
And unfortunately things do change, and people have mixed feelings and say and believe one thing in one circumstance only for new circumstances to change motivations. So the bottom reason to stay together is always because people want to – never FOG.
And it’s not always a sign of major error when things go to splattered bloody shit. Unfortunately many people seem to be built to prefer to crash land their relationships, because demonizing others and hating them is the fastest way to make an emotional break.
Oscar C. said:
I really like your recent posts, it has been a while since I was here for the last time.
The main problem with this one would be, as you advanced, BDSM. Very little love to be found in such practices from my (rather vanilla) perspective.
And regarding “cuck”, the idea is that you get off on watching your wife having sex with others. Not that she simply elopes with another guy, but that while still being your wife and wanting to stay as such she gets fucked by some rando (preferably a minority to add low-status insult to injury) and you jerk off to the whole scene.
Personally I find it bizarre and utterly off-putting. Sick. Whether this is learnt or natural I can’t tell, probably both. It is however effective as a visceral metaphor for Alt-Righters who want to emphasize the treasonous nature of mainstream conservatives who favor immigration.
This could actually be seen as a weird confirmation of your theory of self-esteem being a map of how we are seen by others: personally, I am not so narcissistic that I could not consider the possibility of a more attractive man getting my girl, and would come to accept it; yet what I would loathe the most is the social humiliation it entails.
Nick said:
I think that everything has to end in order for it to be special to you. The most emotional and loving moments in my life were obviously great at the time, but I never truly appreciated them until looking back after the person/relationship was gone.
xsplat said:
Ya, that’s exactly what I said to V, as she was breaking up with me. At the time I felt no panic or loss. I told her I’d not be able to know how I felt about for a few days, at least.
“Oh, you mean you don’t really know what you have until it’s gone?”
“Ya, something like that.”
axiom_verge said:
His opinion was that it was ok to lie, even as a monk having taken vows not to lie, if one is being persecuted wrongfully. Is it therefore also ok to lie about infidelity? If infidelity is in no way wrong, and truth would only lead to being persecuted and have revenge brought upon onseself, and to losing his love, should a man not lie about infidelity? Would that not be the most moral thing to do? For self protection, and so that the goodness of the relationship can be maximized?
This, and all the rationale you carefully built as the foundation to this, is the first thing I read on this blog that really had me doubtful.
I mean, you know that all the backstabbing, hypocrisy, and any crap humans do to each other behind the veil of “thank you” and handshakes and smiles are all rationalized right the way you say it’s good to.
Anybody will cheat any way their “hind brain” leads them to, and then think to themselves they HAD TO — to avoid the man’s anger, or whatever.
It’s how it works.
It’s how we are all alone behind the surface of appearance, captive to a jungle-like one-vs-all never-ending struggle.
And you mention “moral” and “goodness”, avoiding to call things by their name?
What troubles you about saying: “Lying can’t be totally done without in rapports with another human, and I am going to do it whenever not doing it would have a high cost, because the others do it too, and it’s all, only, a battle”?
It would sound much fairer.
axiom_verge said:
Now, on FOG, and cluster-B’s using it.
Of course I am one of them. I mean, my ex wife would back that assertion quickly and easily.
Now, let’s try to tell you how things develop within one cluster-B mind, mine — you don’t seem to have much of a grasp of it, but at the same time you seem open to know and find out more about any subject, so I’ll try to provide a description.
Basically, it all centers about the “women aren’t integrated, they don’t have an identity” reality core. What is a real identity? It’s what stays the same across the dimension of time, and also across the “map” of different situations you can find yourself in (think for example “under heavy stress” and “relaxed” as two opposite ends on the map: how much does a person stay the same or change when the person condition moves from one to the other one of those 2 points on the map?).
This is linked with something I don’t know how to dub properly — maybe “temporal mental extension”. For some, 1 minute ago is like ten years ago; they will be — if and in as much as they “need” to be — a different person to one minute before. With different wants, drives, choices, …
Naturally (but I know this now, I didn’t know this in my FOG age), the more volatile and identity-less, or let’s say psychologically fluid, they are, the faster they are to make vows, and promises of “forever”, and any sort of agreement, breaking each and acting on their instincts in a feral, instinct-dominated, self-awareness-devoid, manner.
If one is enough different from this in his mind, and one never does any of that, and one doesn’t know yet he is the abnormal one and ferality is the normal for humans, and lack of self-awareness and inability to be responsible the normal especially for women, is it so strange and bad that one switches into FOG mode?
I mean, every broken agreement, “forgotten” promise, and feral act (and they are going to be a lot, as you know, with whatever woman) looked as a crime to me.
Because my mind can’t… do the same.
And we all see as big misdeeds and crimes what we ourselves don’t do — that’s how societies defines what is a crime, and what is out of the law (lies for example will never be outlawed, or defined as criminal violations, by any human society: why? Because they all need to lie).
Since she did those things but didn’t ask to leave, since she had spoken out her “forever love”, since those things don’t change from week to week or month to month or even year to year within my mind and I could not imagine the feral way they change within other minds, I went totally insane.
Insanity is gonna be the fruit growing on the tree of what can’t be understood.
It all was impossible to understand, to me.
I won’t be FOGGING anybody ever again — but now I know it’s a battle, fought mainly by deception (and self-deception) taking place on a battlefield. A more civilized, non-physical, variation on the jungle struggle all other animals are caught into.
To my long-time-horizon idealistic mind, it’s a nightmare. And when it’s not a nightmare, it’s a play. Then the say: “You are not serious, you are a bad man.”
Lol. They don’t know the only choice is between being not serious at all, or being more serious than they can (and would) bear.
I am forced not to be serious any more.
xsplat said:
You are asking if I explain away doing selfish actions with justifications, making them moral in my mind.
Yes, I do.
This subject is extremely confusing. And very painful.
I feel really horrible for what happened with V. The woman loved me and did absolutely everything possible to be the best girlfriend for me, with the aim of being my wife and having a family with me.
I feel terrible that I wasn’t able to do it with her.
I want to know why.
So I try to examine my own motives, and ambitions, and desires, put them together with how I understand hers, and try to come up with a grand theory of mind that includes both of our strategies.
It quickly becomes obvious that we have competing strategies.
So I can’t just take sides, with hers. With the “feminine imperative”, or the female centric monogamous strategy. I have instincts and drives also that are just as foundational to my well being, even if they aren’t as culturally acceptable.
I know that I can’t sit at the round table of polite society, among other couples, as a guy with a woman in love with him who continues to seek out new girls. The playboys and playgirls can sit at that table. But I can’t, because I don’t fit into any of the accepted roles.
A guy is supposed to either settle down, or date around and never let anyone fall in love too much. My strategy is to fall in love, in parallel with more than one girl.
That doesn’t fit in, and I know it causes pain, and confusion.
I can’t justify it, but I can’t not justify it either – I mean – it is what it is – the cards that I’ve been dealt. I didn’t create the human condition. I didn’t create the fact that I can feel stifled and bored and trapped. i don’t have an off switch in my head for these instinctual hard wired evolved emotional urges to breed with the hottest woman that I can attract.
These are VERY strong urges for me. My whole life, every fiber in my being, every act that I do in my life, is ALL geared towards mating with hot girls.
I’m evolved, born and bred, cultivated, in one and only one direction. So how can I stop being me?
Evolution is not about justification. It’s not about polite society.
I really wish that I was wired as a family man. Some guys are, and I truly believe that is another evolved hard wired instinctual personality type strategy.
Some guys are evolved to prefer monogomy, and this has been measured as low socio-sexual score in the psychological community. Others, like me, have an extremely high socio-sexual score, and enjoy, crave, and one might even say psychologically NEED sex with less long term commitment in our lives, with occasionally new partners.
It’s not an excuse, or justification. If we don’t follow our wiring, we can’t just suck it up. There are consequences. We become less able to be kind to our partners, act worse towards them, and things go downhill. So we try our best to work with what reality gave us. This real world, and our real urges and desires in it.
Here is a horrible, horrible example. One that’s happened to me more than once, but I’ll use this example specifically:
I once dated a 19 year old virgin. I found her face to be very attractive, and we quickly fell in love and she quickly gave me her virginity. We became bonded, and she was very much in love with me.
I was in Thailand at the time, and the culture there is much more promiscuous, and it was quite common for some guys and girls to have various forms of side lovers, one form of which is called “gik”, which means no strings attached lover. The gik is not expected to be faithful, and not expected to ask too many questions about your other lovers. Affairs also happen, which of course is more emotionally involved and complicated.
I mention the context because even though she was a virgin, she was not naive; she grew up in a millieu of some sexual refinement. You can’t be too Naive in Thailand.
So while I was dating her, I had another main girlfriend, and was also actively dating and meeting new girls from time to time.
The nineteen year old, P19, loved me the most. My other girl S23, had other boyfriends and was a bit of a playgirl, but we had also formed some bonds, and had very frequent sex. S23 is the one who once looked up at me with pupply dog eyes and said “Dad, why I love you Dad? You no rich, you no handsome. Why I love you Dad?” It was a serious heartfelt question and she wanted a serious reply.
Here is the point of the story; at night I would often leave the side of P19, to go to the “internet cafe” and work, but instead of working go se S23. With P19 I could only have brief sex before I got tired or soft. With S23 I could go all night. And yet I loved P19 much more.
It was very confusing, and if you use morals to understand the world you’d go fucking crazy. There was nothing moral about it. It was biological. S23 was the hotter girl, and more my type. Smaller, for one thing. I like small girls.
Since that time I’ve thought about that situation many times.
And I’m reminded of it with what happened with V.
V was more my type, physically, than P19, but a similar thing happened even when I first met her. At the same time I as I was initially dating V23, I had another lover, S17. S is extremely small. Imagine the smallest sexually mature girl you know, and that’s S. V would visit me, and have sex until I felt too tired for more. Then at midnight she’d have to go home, and S would come over, and we’d fuck all night. I NEVER got tired with S. I got tired with V after about an hour.
Same thing.
Eventually V and I grew into a stronger sexual chemistry. Which was a bit of new information to add; ok, so sexual chemistry can also grow.
But it was growing from a different base.
Most of the time that I dated V, I had other lovers, at least one. But eventually I gave them up, in order that she wouldn’t break up with me again, because I was very in love and attached to her, as my mate.
But I found it very difficult to do – too difficult.
And now my introspection can’t exactly tell me why.
Was it because fundamentally I need a plurality of girls?
Or was it because she wasn’t hot enough and my style enough to begin with?
That’s a horrible, horrible question to pose to oneself. So amoral! V and I loved each other dearly and were best friends, and had absolutely everything in place to be life long companions. Except that I really, really, REALLY wanted other lovers and not just her.
Morality has and had nothing to do with my desires; they were there regardless of what morality says should or should not happen.
Did V “deserve” a man who would not have these feelings? I don’t think deserve enters into it either. She fell for me, just as girls are famous for doing; falling in love with the bad boy who “cheats” instead of the good boy who never would. That’s so common it’s a trope.
But what if she were hotter?
Well, I’ve dated hotter girls, very hot girls, and lived with them.
Usually for the first year I’m mostly satisfied with monogamy, with little urge to look around. Not out of moral duty, but simply fascination with the one girl. She holds all my interest.
Now my situation is a bit different than my past. I’m quite old, and you could say almost aged out of the marketplace, for the hot girls I’m so used to dating. My options are dwindling fast. It’s VERY difficult for me to replace a hot girl with another hot girl now.
And I have a new hot girlfriend, who wants to live with me as my mate.
I don’t feel the need any more to date other girls, like I always did with V. That’s so horrible and painful to admit. I really really wish that were not true. It’s terrible that it’s true. V was everything a girl should be. How could I possibly want more?
But I do; I want a hot girl who is small. And my new girlfriend is that. Exactly my type. Great sexual chemistry. Fucking perfect fit. She’s way hotter than I “deserve” if one only considers bodies. I’m not that attractive, and I’m old, and she is noticeably well above average in attractiveness, and young.
I’m not likely to do better to pair bond with, without getting someone very mentally damaged or impaired.
And every year that goes by makes it less likely.
Opportunity affects desire. Before I was always able to make sexual opportunities, because I’m quite experienced and skilled in both seduction and keeping girls around.
But that can’t last forever, without major improvements in cosmetic surgery.
So I really hope that I can be closer to what most people consider moral. Not just because I’m tired of breaking hearts all the time. But because I want to be happy for myself.
I don’t sleep around because I feel it’s the moral and right thing to do. It’s a very deep hard wired compulsion – one that if you don’t have you’d never be able to empathize with. My entire being is driven to fuck hot girls. It’s not a side job.
So now I have a hot girl that I’m fucking. For now I’m going to do just that, and hope for the best.
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